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On Friday, November 8, 2019 at 3 p.m. in the Digital Scholarship Lab at the Rockefeller Library, Elaine Sullivan, Associate Professor of History at UC Santa Cruz, will give a talk entitled, “Constructing the Sacred: Visibility and Ritual Landscape at the Egyptian Necropolis of Saqqara.”

This event is free and open to the public.

Constructing the sacred: Visibility and ritual landscape at the Egyptian necropolis of Saqqara

This talk will discuss Sullivan’s forthcoming born digital publication which utilizes a 3D reconstruction model to examine the importance of visibility and landscape change at the ancient Egyptian necropolis of Saqqara. The project will be published as an online only monograph by Stanford University Press in winter 2020 and includes a dynamic 3D GIS model as part of the publication.

Elaine Sullivan

Dr. Sullivan is an Egyptologist and a Digital Humanist. Her work focuses on applying new technologies to ancient cultural materials. She acts as the project coordinator of the Digital Karnak Project, a multi-phased 3D virtual reality model of the famous ancient Egyptian temple complex of Karnak. She is project director of 3D Saqqara, which harnesses Geographic Information Systems (GIS) technologies and 3D modeling to explore the ritual and natural landscape of the famous cemetery of Saqqara through both space and time.

Her field experience in Egypt includes five seasons of excavation with Johns Hopkins University at the temple of the goddess Mut (Luxor), as well as four seasons in the field with a UCLA project in the Egyptian Fayum, at the Greco-Roman town of Karanis.

Because of a broad interest in the history and material culture of the larger ancient Near Eastern and Mediterranean worlds, she has also excavated at sites in Syria, Italy and Israel. Dr. Sullivan received her M.A. and Ph.D. in Egyptian Art and Archaeology from Johns Hopkins University. Her B.A. (Magna Cum Laude) in History is from Duke University.

On Wednesday, October 23, 2019 at 12 p.m. in the Digital Scholarship Lab at the Rockefeller Library, Dr. Li Wang, Curator of the East Asian Collection, will give a talk, “Exploring the Digital China 2019.” This event is free and open to the public. Coffee and cookies will be served.

This new visual report will focus on Dr. Wang’s professional trip this summer in China, where he attended several conferences, Beijing International Book Fair, and other events. During this period, he delivered two presentations at the International Conference on Digital Publishing and Digital Libraries and the Sino-American Academic Library Forum on Collaboration and Development. The first presentation, entitled “Digital Scholarship at Brown (Continuance): Knowledge Innovation and Research Engagement in North American University Libraries,” is a follow-up chapter of his award-winning paper on “Digital Scholarship at Brown” from 2014. The second is on American Sinologist Charles S. Gardner and the Chinese collection at Brown University, which won the first prize for papers at the Sino-American Library Forum.

2019 CDPDL in Changchun, China

In his talk, Dr. Wang will scan
recent trends in digital publishing, knowledge innovation and library services developed
in China and other places in the world. He will also share pictures, stories
and thoughts on this fruitful journey, including
cultural tours of the Russian style Gogol Bookstore, the wonderful Heaven Lake on the China-North Korea border, and the
Inner Mongolian prairie in north China, and much more.

The University Library and the Dean of the Faculty, together with the Digital Publications Advisory Board, are pleased to announce the selection of the next two long-form scholarly works to be developed as part of Brown’s Digital Publications Initiative.

At a Standstill, Moving: Gesture, Temporality and the Interval in Performance

Rebecca Schneider

At a Standstill, Moving: Gesture, Temporality and the Interval in Performance by Rebecca Schneider, Professor of Theatre Arts and Performance Studies, situates the importance of gesture within a wide range of performances. From the vibrancy of opera to the seeming standstill of stone, Schneider’s project offers a non-linear reading experience while focusing on the significance of the interval in order to explore multiple and intersecting temporalities.

The Past and Future of Chika Sagawa, Japanese Modernist Poet

Sawako Nakayasu. Photo by Mitsuo Okamoto

The Past and
Future of Chika Sagawa, Japanese Modernist Poet by Sawako Nakayasu, Assistant
Professor of Literary Arts, draws attention to an influential but largely
overlooked female poet from early-twentieth-century Japan. Nakayasu’s project
proposes an innovative use of interwoven media to illuminate the complex poetry
of Chika Sagawa as well as to broaden the scope of literary translation.

With continued support
from the Andrew W. Mellon Foundation, Brown’s Digital Publications
Initiative seeks to advance
humanities scholarship by providing a university-based approach to the development, evaluation,
and publication of born-digital scholarly monographs. With oversight from Brown’s
Digital Scholarship Editor, projects that are selected by the Initiative’s
Digital Publications Advisory Board are developed as digital works that draw
upon the capabilities of the Library’s Center for Digital Scholarship. These
scholarly works are then submitted to leading university presses that have
corresponding academic interests and the infrastructure for peer review and
digital publication.

In addition to Nakayasu and Schneider’s projects, digital works currently under development include: Furnace and Fugue: A Digital Edition of Michael Maier’s Atalanta fugiens (1618) with Scholarly Commentary, co-edited by Tara Nummedal, Professor of History, and Independent Scholar Donna Bilak (forthcoming with University of Virginia Press); Italian Shadows: A Curious History of Virtual Reality by Massimo Riva, Professor and Chair of Italian Studies; The Sensory Monastery: Saint-Jean-des-Vignes, co-authored by Sheila Bonde, Professor of History of Art and Architecture and Professor of Archaeology, and Clark Maines, Professor Emeritus of Art History at Wesleyan University; Islamic Pasts and Futures: Gazing at Horizons of Time by Shahzad Bashir, Director of Middle East Studies, Aga Khan Professor of Islamic Humanities, and Professor of Religious Studies; and Nicholas Brown and The Roman Revolution of 1848–1849 by David Kertzer, Paul R. Dupee, Jr. University Professor of Social Science, Professor of Anthropology, and Professor of Italian Studies.

With $775,000 from The Mellon Foundation, the Brown University
Library, together with the Dean of the Faculty, extends its work with
born-digital scholarly monographs.

Providence,
R.I.
[Brown University] Brown University has received a $775,000 grant from The
Andrew W. Mellon Foundation to support a second phase of its Digital
Publications Initiative, launched in 2015 with an initial grant of $1.3
million. The Initiative, a collaboration between the University Library and the
Dean of the Faculty, has established a novel, university-based approach to the
development, evaluation, and publication of born-digital scholarly monographs.

Following
a successful initial phase, a second grant allows the University to consolidate
its Initiative while continuing to advance the role of digital scholarship in
the academy. From
employing interactive simulations to nonlinear reading opportunities, these publications
demonstrate how the digital environment is necessary for articulating and
advancing scholarly argument beyond the capabilities of print. With oversight from Allison Levy, Brown’s Digital
Scholarship Editor, projects that are selected by the Initiative’s faculty
advisory board are developed as digital works that draw upon the capabilities
of the Library’s Center for Digital Scholarship. These digital scholarly works are
then submitted to leading university presses that have corresponding academic
interests and the infrastructure for peer review and digital publication.

“When
Dean of the Faculty Kevin McLaughlin, former University Librarian Harriette
Hemmasi, and I were developing the initial proposal for Mellon, we were sailing
into uncharted waters,” said Joukowsky Family University Librarian Joseph S.
Meisel, co-principal investigator for the Initiative. “But the Initiative has
succeeded even beyond what we hoped for at the time. Mellon’s commitment to
continued funding to help us consolidate these early successes and make the
Initiative sustainable is a significant recognition of what we have managed to
achieve. Our guiding principles have been to focus on scholarly excellence and to
put the faculty’s vision for their work first.”

To date, five faculty
publication projects in a range of humanities fields have been selected and are
under development for the Initiative’s first phase, with a sixth project yet to
be chosen from the most recent round of proposals. The first two projects are
nearing publication. Over the next six years, with support from the new Mellon
grant, the Initiative plans to add 4-5 new projects.

Furnace and Fugue screenshot

The first of the Initiative’s two pilot projects, Furnace and Fugue: A Digital Edition of Michael Maier’s Atalanta fugiens (1618) with Scholarly Commentary, will be published by the University of Virginia Press. Co-authored by Tara Nummedal, Professor of History, and independent scholar Donna Bilak, Furnace and Fugue revolves around a seventeenth-century German alchemical book. The second pilot project, Italian Shadows: A Journey into the New World and Other Tales of Imaginary and Forgotten Media by Massimo Riva, Professor and Chair of Italian Studies, takes as its focus the genealogy of virtual reality in eighteenth- and nineteenth-century Italy.

A part of the Initiative from the earliest stages, Riva expresses the significance of working on Italian Shadows in the digital realm: “My project involves a rich and diverse set of visual and multimedia sources, as well as interactive models and simulations of historical artifacts, and could only have been conceived and implemented in a digital environment. Working with this exceptionally talented team of designers, editors, and librarians has opened new horizons to my scholarship and inspired me to explore new ways to share it with my peers, my students, and the public at large.”

The third project, The Sensory Monastery: Saint-Jean-des-Vignes by Sheila Bonde, Professor of History of Art and Architecture, and Clark
Maines, Professor of Art History Emeritus at Wesleyan, explores
the sensory experience of monasticism in medieval and early modern France.
The fourth, Islamic
Pasts and Futures: Gazing at Horizons of Time by Shahzad Bashir, Aga
Khan Professor of Islamic Humanities and Director of Brown’s Middle East
Studies program, rethinks the conjunction between
Islam and temporality, spanning the centuries and regions where Islam has been a
significant presence. The fifth, Nicholas Brown
and the Roman Revolution of 1848–1849,
by David Kertzer, Paul R. Dupee, Jr. University Professor of Social
Science, Professor of Anthropology, and Professor of Italian Studies, re-examines the politics
of nineteenth-century Italy via a trove of recently rediscovered
correspondence.

Having
arrived at a model of developing long-form digital scholarship, seeing growing
interest in this effort on campus, and finding that leading academic publishers
are receptive to the Initiative’s projects and approach, Brown is on a path to
facilitating the creation and validation of new scholarly forms and helping to
broker their dissemination through the most suitable venues for digital
publication.

“With this renewed support from The Mellon Foundation, Brown will
be able to continue to produce innovative digital publications that open new
possibilities for the presentation and dissemination of scholarship by our
faculty that is of the highest quality,” said Dean of the Faculty Kevin
McLaughlin, co-principal investigator for the Initiative. “Each one of these
digital publications creates new conditions for the production and circulation
of humanist scholarship.”

Brown University Library and The Wall Street Journal have partnered to provide school-sponsored WSJ memberships to all Brown University students, faculty, and staff. Through the partnership, readers have complete and personalized digital access to The Wall Street Journal and the WSJ app.

How to activate your complimentary WSJ membership:

Students, faculty, and staff at Brown University can activate their complimentary memberships by visiting WSJ.com/Brown, logging into their school portal, and creating an account on the registration page. Those who currently pay for an existing membership may call 1-800-JOURNAL, and mention they are switching to their subscription provided by Brown University. Partial refunds will be dispersed.

About The Wall Street Journal

The Wall Street Journal is a global news organization that provides news, information, commentary, and analysis. Published by Dow Jones, The Wall Street Journal engages readers across print, digital, mobile, social, and video. Building on its heritage as the preeminent source of global business and financial news, the Journal includes coverage of U.S. & world news, politics, arts, culture, lifestyle, sports and health. It holds 38 Pulitzer Prizes for outstanding journalism.

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On Friday, May 3, 2019, the Rhode Island School of Design (RISD) Museum hosted a one-day symposium in conjunction with its exhibit Gorham Silver: Designing Brilliance 1850-1970, at which Holly Snyder, Curator Curator of American Historical Collections and the History of Science at the Brown Library, presented. Holly spoke about the history of the Gorham Manufacturing Company.

Exhibit Catalog

As part of their preparation for the exhibition, the RISD Museum asked Holly to write an introductory chapter for the exhibit catalog about the history of the company and the making of the Gorham Company Archive. Holly co-wrote the chapter with Gerald M. Carbone, an independent writer and journalist, who had previously published a book on Brown & Sharpe.

Symposium Presentation

The presentations at the symposium were intended to recapitulate some of the material in each of the chapters of the exhibit catalog. Holly’s talk, “The Gorham Company Archive in the Historical Context of Providence, Rhode Island,” focused on how the Gorham records ended up at the John Hay Library and how this collection is nestled within the larger collections at the Hay.

Samuel J. Hough

The late Samuel J. Hough, a former librarian at the John Carter Brown Library who became an independent bookseller, appraiser, and researcher, played a key role in rescuing the Gorham records from imminent destruction and bringing these materials to the attention of John Hay Library staff. The transfer of these records to the Hay took place during the rapid downsizing of the company in the mid-1980s, when Gorham was owned by Textron and the decision was made to abandon the plant complex on Adelaide Avenue in Providence in favor of smaller manufacturing sites elsewhere. Sam Hough worked closely with the Brown Library on the Gorham records and helped sort and organize the Gorham materials that the Library ultimately received from Textron. Sam Hough passed away in early March 2019, and Holly framed her talk as a tribute to his work, on which all of the symposium participants had relied.

Gorham Company Archive and Providence-based Photography

Holly also spoke about the way in which the Gorham Company Archive intersects with other aspects of Brown’s special collections holdings, specifically that the Gorham records enhance the Library’s holdings related to the technical innovations in photography in Providence–innovations on which the Gorham Company relied heavily in building its marketing and its customer base.

Photography was a consumer-oriented business in Providence, which Holly illustrated by showing various examples from the special collections, starting with a Poe daguerrotype and moving through images of The Arcade Providence, to advertising from 19th century business directories. All of these items represent technological evolution that made photography popular with the masses and useful to Gorham’s business. She also showed broadsides from Brown’s holdings that portray the pre-existing popular taste for entertainment on which Gorham was effectively able to capitalize.

Dr. Li Wang in the East Asian Collection room at the Rockefeller Library

On Friday, May 10, 2019 at 12 p.m. in the Digital Scholarship Lab at the Rockefeller Library, Dr. Li Wang, Curator of East Asian Collection, will give a presentation, “American Sinologist Charles S. Gardner and Chinese Collection at Brown.”

This talk is free and open to the public. Coffee and cookies will be available.

The talk is based on Dr. Wang’s recent focused studies regarding Charles Sidney Gardner (1900-1966), a noted Sinologist and former Harvard University professor, who donated his entire personal collection, including a large number of Chinese rare books, to Brown University Library in his late years. It provides brief biological information on the family life, education, and scholarly career of Gardner, especially his link to China, a country where he lived as a visiting scholar during the 1920s and 1930s.

The talk will also address Gardner’s scholarly contributions and influences as a pioneer of American Chinese studies to the field. With regard to Gardner’s network and friendship with many Western and Chinese scholars, the talk will demonstrate various rare archival items recently found in the Collection. After reviewing Gardner’s insightful ideas and practices on building Chinese library collections, Dr. Wang will describe the process of Gardner’s valuable donations in the 1960s and present current developments at the Brown Library East Asian Collection.

The book has been well received by critics and readers. Historian Ingrid Rowland describes it as “an enthralling tour through an extraordinary Florentine palazzo, complete with romance, murder, lives of the rich and famous, and layer upon layer of history ranging from the heart of the Renaissance to yesterday. A scholarly thriller that is virtually impossible to put down.”

Allison Levy

An art historian educated at Bryn Mawr College, Allison tells the remarkable story of Palazzo Rucellai from behind its celebrated façade in House of Secrets. While staying in Florence during a teaching sabbatical, Allison had the opportunity to live in Palazzo Rucellai and learn about its history firsthand, becoming inspired to tell the stories of the real life characters who have populated the house and bring its history to life.

On Wednesday, May 1, 2019 at 4 p.m. in the Digital Scholarship Lab at the Rockefeller Library, Dr. Lindsey Jones will give a talk about the database she is creating about the education and incarceration of black girls in Virginia during Jim Crow.

This event is free and open to the public. A Q&A and reception will follow the talk.

Dr. Jones is collecting information about the girls who were committed to the Virginia Industrial School for Colored Girls, the state of Virginia’s reformatory for black girls, operational between 1915 and the 1950s, after the courts across the state labeled them “delinquent.” The reformatory was designed by a statewide network of black women activists to protect and educate troubled black girls rather than punishing them for adolescent misbehaviors.

Lindsey Jones

Dr. Lindsey Jones, Presidential Diversity Postdoctoral Fellow in the Department of Education at Brown, is working on a book project that explores the education and incarceration of black girls in Jim Crow Virginia, focusing specifically upon the Virginia Industrial School for Colored Girls. As part of this project, Dr. Jones is designing a relational database to collect information about the individual girls who were committed to this reformatory.